2011/12/15: BWeek: Loophole Inserted in Climate Accord Augurs U.S.-China ClashThe deal struck by United Nations envoys this week to fight climate change gives the biggest polluters three options for a wider agreement by 2015, setting the stage for renewed discord between rich and poor countries. Negotiators from more than 190 nations agreed Dec. 11 to spend up to four years drafting a “protocol, legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force” to take effect by 2020. While the European Union says that calls for a treaty to limit fossil-fuel emissions in all countries, two of the world’s three biggest air polluters, China and India, signaled they expect to be assigned looser limits in the final accord. EU carbon permits are headed for their biggest weekly drop since June. “The phrase ‘agreed outcome with legal force’ is new,” Lou Leonard, a lawyer and director of WWF’s climate change program in Washington, said in an interview. “They just made it up. We don’t know what it means.”

2011/12/16: DVoice: The Two-Party System is a CharadeMany people are under the misguided impression that The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa, constituted a failure on the part of the world’s leadership to come to terms with the implications of global warming. Nothing could be further from the truth. Their failure to reach an agreement was a forgone conclusion, and as predictable as Exon’s profits in the coming quarter.It should be obvious at this point that neither the U.S. government, nor the corporate oligarchy (forgive the redundancy), is interested in formulating and carrying out solutions to the problems facing the world: poverty, inadequate health care, meaningful education at affordable prices, world peace, environmental protection, sustainability and justice, to name just a few.It is not that the powers-that-be disagree as to the ways to deal with these problems. On the contrary, there is total unity that meaningful solutions to the problems would affect corporate profits, and accordingly the parties simply agree to disagree. In that way, the status quo remains intact, assuring the destruction of the earth, the economic disenfranchisement of the masses of people, and the ongoing monopolization of wealth into the hands of the billionaires.

2011/12/12: G&M: Climate summit was a pathetic exercise in deceitIt was an “emperor-has-no-clothes” moment. The 17-year-old youth delegate rose before the assembled participants at the Durban climate conference and looked them straight in the eye. “I speak for more than half the world’s population,” declared Anjali Appadurai of Maine’s College of the Atlantic. “We are the silent majority. You’ve given us a seat in this hall, but our interests are not at the table. What does it take to get a stake in this game? Lobbyists? Corporate influence? Money?” “You have been negotiating all of my life. In that time, you’ve failed to meet pledges, you’ve missed targets, and you’ve broken promises.” Ms. Appadurai nailed it. There’s really only one label for the pathetic exercise we’ve just witnessed in South Africa: deceit. The whole climate-change negotiation process and the larger political discourse surrounding this horrible problem is a drawn-out and elaborate exercise in lying – to each other, to ourselves, and especially to our children. And the lies are starting to corrupt our civilization from inside out.

2011/12/14: PlanetArk: Canada, Out Of Kyoto, Must Still cut emissions: U.N.Canada still has a legal obligation under United Nations rules to cut its emissions despite the country’s pullout from the Kyoto Protocol, the U.N. climate chief said on Tuesday. Christiana Figueres also said the timing of Canada’s move, a day after a deal to extend the protocol was clinched at a U.N. summit in South Africa, was regrettable and surprising.

2011/12/13: BBC: Canada under fire over Kyoto protocol exitSeveral countries have criticised Canada for formally withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. A spokesman for France’s foreign ministry called the move “bad news for the fight against climate change”, a sentiment echoed by other officials.

It is evident that the Fukushima disaster is going to persist for some time. TEPCO says 6 to 9 months. The previous Japanese Prime Minister, Naoto Kan, said decades. Now the Japanese government is talking about 30 years. [Whoops, that has now been updated to 40 years.] We’ll see. At any rate this situation is not going to be resolved any time soon and deserves its own section.

2011/12/16: Independent(UK): Battle to control Fukushima has just ‘stored up’ dangersThe operator of the Fukushima nuclear plant is expected to declare today that its crippled reactors have been stabilised, nine months after an earthquake and tsunami triggered the world’s worst nuclear accident in 25 years. But critics, including a journalist who worked undercover at the plant, have rubbished the claims by Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) that the crisis is over. And Japan’s government admitted this week that dismantling the reactors and the 260-tonne lethal cargo of nuclear fuel will take up to 40 years.

2011/12/14: NYT: Japan May Declare Control of Reactors, Over Serious DoubtsNine months after the devastating earthquake and tsunami knocked out cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, causing a meltdown at three units, the Tokyo government is expected to declare soon that it has finally regained control of the plant’s overheating reactors. But even before it has been made, the announcement is facing serious doubts from experts.[…]However, many experts fear that the government is declaring victory only to appease growing public anger over the accident, and that it may deflect attention from remaining threats to the reactors’ safety. One of those — a large aftershock to the magnitude 9 earthquake on March 11, which could knock out the jury-rigged new cooling system that the plant’s operator hastily built after the accident — is considered a strong possibility by many seismologists. They also said the term cold shutdown might give an exaggerated impression of stability to severely damaged reactors with fuel cores that have not only melted down, but melted through the inner containment vessels and bored into the floor of their concrete outer containment structures.

2011/12/13: TStar: Ontario polar bears doomed, expert saysSay goodbye to Ontario’s polar bears.Warmer weather will likely make it impossible for the iconic bears to survive on the shores of Hudson’s Bay in Ontario and Manitoba in 20 to 30 years, says the world’s best-known polar bear expert. The warning should not be taken lightly, considering Ian Stirling has studied polar bears as a biologist and adjunct University of Alberta professor for 41 years — longer than anyone else in the field. “It’s not speculation,” Stirling said in an interview Tuesday. “By the middle of the century, we’re likely to have lost two thirds of the world’s polar bears.”

2011/12/17: BBC: UK fishing fleets get higher fish quotas but less time at seaBritish fishing fleets will be able to land more fish, but face fewer days at sea, following EU talks in Brussels. The British government says it achieved victory for the UK fishing industry in the annual Common Fisheries Policy negotiations, which ended at 04:00 GMT. The Scottish government was less happy, saying it faced “huge frustration”. The BBC’s Andy Moore says Britain had French and German support in battling against cuts that could have been disastrous for the UK fishing fleet.

2011/12/16: al Jazeera: Fears rise of food shortages in West AfricaUN bodies say 11 million people in five countries will face a food crisis if early warning systems are ignored. Millions of people in up to five West African countries will face a food crisis in early 2012 if early warning systems are ignored, the United Nations and aid officials say. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), together with the World Food Programme (WFP) and British charity Oxfam, said this week that failed harvests and low food reserves in the Sahel, and particularly the countries of Chad, Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Mali, would affect up to 11 million people.

2011/12/14: CCurrents: Soaring Oil And Food Prices Threaten Affordable Food SupplyAdvance version, for publication in UNCTAD Trade and Environment Review 2011/2012 (February 2012).Abstract: The current global food system is highly fuel- and transport-dependent. Fuels will almost certainly become less affordable in the near and medium term, making the current, highly fuel-dependent agricultural production system less secure and food less affordable. It is therefore necessary to promote food self-sufficiency and reduce the need for fuel inputs to the food system at all levels.

2011/12/18: CBC: Philippine flood toll climbs past 600 — Hundreds remain missing, officials sayThe death toll from storm-triggered flash floods that devastated a wide swath of the country’s south has risen to 652, the Philippine Red Cross says. The death toll would most likely rise, Philippine Red Cross Secretary General Gwendolyn Pang said Sunday, with 808 people still missing and many villages remaining isolated and unreached by overwhelmed disaster-response personnel.

2011/12/12: CNN: The greenest buildings of 2011CNN presents a selection of eco-friendly buildings that were honored this year – Eco-friendly buildings include schools, homes, sports arenas and office buildings – Awarded by Royal Institute of British Architects and American Institute of Architects among others

2011/12/15: BBC: Firms say low carbon price threatens EU green targetsSome of Europe’s biggest energy and manufacturing firms say the EU must act to raise the price of carbon and ensure that CO2 emissions targets are met. A letter to the European Commission from the industry group warns that the future of the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is at stake. The EU Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change (EUCLG) includes Royal Dutch Shell, Enel, Alstom and Acciona. EU carbon permits have dropped 55% in price this year, to 6.45 euros (£5.40).

2011/12/14: BBC: Morocco bans EU fishing vessels amid Western Sahara rowMorocco has ordered foreign fishing boats operating in its waters under an EU deal to leave immediately. The moves comes after the European Parliament voted not to extend a deal under which the EU paid Morocco for access to its fish stocks. MEPs said the deal was illegal as it did not benefit the people living in the disputed Western Sahara, off which most of the fishing took place.

2011/12/15: EurActiv: Chinese group urges airlines to defy EU emissions ruleChinese airlines are being urged not to cooperate with a controversial scheme that will force them to buy carbon credits for all flights entering Europe starting on 1 January, the head of the country’s aviation industry group said. Wei Zhenzhong, secretary-general of the China Air Transport Association (CATA), said he has asked all domestic airlines to refuse to participate in the scheme, according to a report by the official China News Service today (15 December). He has also requested domestic airlines not to submit carbon dioxide monitoring plans to European officials or to enter into negotiations for preferential treatment, the report said. Starting in January, all airlines landing in Europe will be subject to a carbon cap and will be obliged to cover surplus emissions through the purchase of credits on the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). The China Air Transport Association says the scheme will cost Chinese airlines 800 million yuan (E94.7 million) in the first year and more than triple that by 2020. Airlines across the world have criticised the scheme as “unilateral” and “protectionist”, and have threatened legal action, saying it violates the 1944 Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation, the Kyoto Protocol and the rules of the World Trade Organisation.

2011/12/14: PlanetArk: U.S. Green Groups Challenge Offshore Oil Lease SaleU.S. environmental groups on Tuesday filed a lawsuit challenging the Interior Department’s first offshore lease sale since last year’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill, saying the department has done too little to prevent another disaster. The department has received bids to develop more than a million acres offered in the western Gulf lease sale on Wednesday, but the groups said the offshore regulator has yet to apply lessons from the nation’s largest offshore oil spill.

2011/12/17: AntiWar: With Friends Like Gingrich, Does Israel Need Enemies?My God, what a bizarre lot these Republican aspirants for the US presidency are! What a sorry bunch of ignoramuses and downright crazies. Or, at best, what a bunch of cheats and cynics! (With the possible exception of the good doctor Ron Paul). Is this the best a great and proud nation can produce? How frightening the thought that one of them may actually become the most powerful person in the world, with a finger on the biggest nuclear button!

2011/12/14: DWR: Rick Perry and The Vagina BillIs it just me or does every republican politician preach racism, sexism and bigotry to appeal to the wack-a-loon conservative “value voters” ( *sproing* my irony meter just imploded) and once their votes are secured by promising to disenfranchise demonized minority X (women, homosexuals, PoC, etc) they promptly ignore said base and continue to happily cement the budding plutocracy.

2011/12/14: CSM: Fight among nation’s top nuclear regulators gets airing before CongressA political dogfight over new recommendations for boosting safety at US nuclear power plants in the wake of Fukushima is moving from behind closed doors at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission into the nation’s Capitol. Front and center is NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko, who is set to be grilled in hearings before the House Wednesday and in the Senate Thursday over his management style.

2011/12/15: BBC: Low-carbon technology ‘will not mean big bill rises’Claims that the costs of wind farms and other low-carbon technology will lead to sharp rises in fuel bills are wrong, government advisers say. The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) says increases in bills over the past few years have been largely due to higher wholesale gas costs.

2011/12/16: EurActiv: Report sheds light on Europe’s energy-guzzling homesA quarter of Europe’s energy-related greenhouse gas emissions come from homes, says a new analysis by the European Environment Agency (EEA). The EU number-crunchers found that while homes in the EU only emitted 12 % of energy emissions directly, that figure rose to 25% when related emissions from power plants and district heating were taken into account. Monica Frassoni, president of the non-profit European Alliance to Save Energy, said that the report findings underlined the “pressing need” for the EU to step up its regulatory efforts.

2011/12/15: EurActiv: EU energy roadmap for 2050 seen as a ‘missed opportunity’European clean energy advocates criticised the European Commission’s energy roadmap for 2050, published today (15 December), as a “missed opportunity” for omitting intermediate targets from the final text. “We will only achieve the needed decarbonisation of the energy sector by 2050 if a coherent framework is put in place post-2020,” Christine Lins, the director of REN21, an international renewable energy policy network, told EurActiv. “There is a need for 2030 commitments and the lack of reference to that here definitely misses an opportunity,” she said.

2011/12/15: EurActiv: Energy efficiency directive in limboThe purpose of the Energy Efficiency Directive is to save energy and boost growth, but the means through which it will simultaneously achieve both are still to be fleshed out. “We are working hard to get compromises on this directive,” British MEP Fiona Hall (Liberal Democrats) told EurActiv.

2011/12/13: OpenDem: Poland’s politics of abortionA citiziens’ initiative seeking a reform of Poland’s abortion law is facing a crucial test in parliament. This is the latest phase of a long struggle over women’s reproductive rights. It is also part of a changing Poland’s wider debate about what kind of country it should be, says Agnieszka Mrozik.

2011/12/16: ABC(Au): Wet season drilling worries green groupConservationists in Western Australia have raised concerns about oil and gas drilling continuing in the Kimberley during the wet season. The Wilderness Society of WA says Buru Energy is being unsafe by planning to drill for the resources in the Canning Basin during the cyclone season.

2011/12/17: ABC(Au): [NSW Environment Minister, Robyn] Parker moves to amend NSW logging lawsNew South Wales Environment Minister Robyn Parker is moving to amend laws which will allow Forests NSW to harm the endangered population of the yellow-bellied glider on the state’s far south. The documents show Ms Parker is planning changes to the Threatened Species Conservation Act which “authorises harm to the endangered population of the yellow-bellied glider of the Bago Plateau”. Opposition environment spokesman Luke Foley says it is disgraceful.

2011/12/15: ABC(Au): Hartcher to hear CSG fearsA meeting is underway between the state Energy and Resources Minister, Chris Hartcher, and an anti-coal seam gas (CSG) group from Gurley, near Moree. The chairwoman of the Bellata-Gurley Coal Seam Gas Action Group, Penny Blatchford, has been given 45 minutes with Mr Hartcher in Sydney today. The main topic of discussion is Petroleum Exploration Licence 470, operated by Leichhardt Resources.

2011/12/13: ABC(Au): Deal aims to ease carbon tax negativesFederal Regional Development Minister Simon Crean and his Victorian counterpart, Peter Ryan, are signing an agreement today in the Latrobe Valley. Mr Crean and Mr Ryan are launching a reference group and a committee to try to counteract any negative effects on the region from the carbon tax.

2011/12/14: ABC(Au): State of the Lake reportLake Macquarie has topped the state for the uptake of climate change rebates for the second year in a row. 13,350 rebates were paid to residents last financial year, which saved an equivalent of more than 22,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide and more than 120,000 kilolitres of water. The State of the Lake Environment report also shows more people participated in community engagement programs like Landcare and Clean-up Australia day.

2011/12/16: AllAfrica: FinancialGazette: Country, Climate Change PhenomenaDespite being significantly impacted by global warming, Zimbabweans are taking their sweet time to implement policies that can mitigate the impact of climate change, which is already taking its toll on agriculture, the country’s mainstay. Environmentalists have made recommendations at various gatherings about how global warming could be mitigated but nothing has been translated into action. Zimbabwe has also pledged to do the same to the world yet nothing is happening on the ground to achieve this.

2011/12/16: TreeHugger: Half of Brazilians in Fear of War Over the AmazonAs more and more places in the developed world join those already heavily reliant on non-domestic resources, it’s no wonder that folks in some developing nations might be worried about the future — and in Brazil, they are. According to the results of a new poll, half of all Brazilians surveyed are either certain, or strongly believe that within the next 20 years an attack will be waged on their homeland for control of the resource-rich Amazon rainforest. But who would do such a thing? Well, 37 percent say the United States is a likely aggressor

2011/12/14: CBC: Uranium mine ownership rules may easeA Saskatchewan MP, Brad Trost, has introduced federal legislation that would allow for more foreign investment in Canadian uranium mines. Trost’s bill would allow foreign investors to purchase and own the entirety of Canadian uranium mines and properties. Current rules limit foreign interest to a maximum of 49 per cent.

2011/12/16: PlanetArk: Canada Regulator Keeps Arctic Drilling ProvisionsCanada’s National Energy Board said on Thursday that any company that wants to drill for oil and gas in Arctic waters will need to demonstrate it has the capacity to sink a relief well in the same drilling season to cope with possible well blowouts. In the conclusion to a review launched following BP Plc’s Macondo blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, the board said it decided to maintain the same-season provision despite a request from BP and Exxon Mobil Corp that it be waived.

2011/12/15: CBC: Energy board releases Arctic offshore drilling rulesThe National Energy Board says applicants looking to drill offshore in the Canadian Arctic will be required to make public their safety, contingency, emergency response and environmental protection plans, part of new rules released Thursday. The NEB’s new filing process follows a review of its requirements for Arctic offshore drilling that was begun in 2010, following the massive BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

2011/12/13: TStar: Canada must do betterCanadians may not be the biggest greenhouse gas polluters in the world, putting out a bare 2 per cent of global emissions. But that doesn’t relieve us of the obligation to come up with a credible plan to address the problem now that we have formally abandoned the seriously flawed Kyoto process. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government would be wise to chart a new and more ambitious course that the public understands and supports, or risk this country being cast as a chronic environmental shirker.

2011/12/13: CBC: May accuses Harper of breaking law over KyotoPrime Minister Stephen Harper and his government are breaking the law by withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May said Tuesday. “Not only has Canada just ended our commitments under an international treaty, I believe we are in violation of domestic law,” May told a news conference on Parliament Hill. “The Kyoto Implementation Act was passed by the House of Commons in 2007 and has royal assent. It requires Canada to continue reporting and doing its job, fulfilling its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol,” she said. “I wonder that the prime minister of this country thinks he can withdraw us from an international treaty which was ratified by the House of Commons with no discussion in the House, and violate a domestic law with no discussion in the House.”

2011/12/15: iPolitics: Trudeau’s stinkbomb fits the cursed times“Trudeau impression of Peter Kent much higher than my own.” That was the response of one sarcastic online poster to Justin Trudeau’s defecatory defamation of the environment minister. “Perhaps Peter Kent will try to sue Trudeau for definition of character,” wrote another wag. And, given the reaction of foreign governments to Canada’s backing out of the Kyoto accord, a third predicted that, “Peter Kent would be called much worse if he were to walk the streets of Europe, Japan or China.” With his fuddle-duddle moment, Justin Trudeau, initially at least, appeared to be winning the p.r. war. Not bad for calling a minister of the crown a piece of excrement.

2011/12/14: CBC: Justin Trudeau apologizes for swearing at Kent[Warning: This story contains graphic language that may be offensive] Liberal MP Justin Trudeau said he lost his temper in the House of Commons during question period when he swore at Environment Minister Peter Kent, which he later apologized for. “I lost my temper and used language that was most decidedly unparliamentary and for that I unreservedly apologize and withdraw my remark,” Trudeau said once question period had concluded Wednesday. The commotion began when NDP MP Megan Leslie was questioning Kent about Canada’s withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol. Kent suggested that Leslie should have been in Durban, South Africa, for the recent UN climate change conference, which prompted howls from the opposition benches because opposition MPs were banned from being part of Canada’s delegation at the conference. Kent’s response was interrupted by heckling, and Trudeau could be heard shouting, “You piece of shit” at the environment minister.

2011/12/14: SaskBoy: POS Canadian Government[…]I’m proud of Justin Trudeau’s outburst in Question Period today. He called the Environment Minister Peter Kent a “piece of shit” for blaming an NDP MP for not attending Durban’s climate change conference, while it was Kent’s government that denied attendance to opposition MPs!

2011/12/16: PostMedia: Why Canada’s nuclear cleanup will cost billions and take decadesIt lights our Christmas trees, drives industry, makes medicine, heats our homes and is carbon-free. Nuclear power has a back end, too. Radwaste. More than 240,000 tonnes of intensely radioactive civilian waste has piled up around the globe since the dawning of the atomic age. Sixty years on, no one is sure yet how to safely and permanently dispose of the stuff, much of it harmful to living organisms for thousands of years. Canada’s share of the high-level heap stands at 44,000 tonnes. Virtually all is spent uranium fuel bundles – 2.3 million of them – that powered the commercial and research reactors that made Canada a leading nuclear nation.

2011/12/14: ChronicleHerald: Union: Scientists scared to talk about DFO cutsEmployees fear they could face sanctions or suspension for remarks on job losses Scientists are worried about cuts at Fisheries and Oceans Canada but cannot speak out for fear of being black­listed, their union says. On Monday, Fisheries and Oceans noti­fied about 400 people that their jobs could be eliminated. About half the people put on notice were scientists.

2011/12/12: PostMedia: Strategic review at Fisheries and Oceans to affect 400 employeesAbout 400 Fisheries and Oceans employees across Canada are to receive letters from managers Monday informing them their jobs will be affected as the department rolls out reductions from last year’s strategic review. The written notices are going to employees who work in the seven regions where the department operates. More than 200 of those receiving notices are biologists and other scientists and the vast majority work outside the capital in areas of ocean management, fish habitat management, hydrography and aquaculture. Another 39 positions are being cut from the Coast Guard following a re-organization. It’s unclear how many of those “affected” will end up losing their jobs. Officials from one of the unions representing workers say they are braced for between 150 and 280 jobs to permanently disappear.

2011/12/17: PostMedia: Manitoba court denies initial challenge to wheat board lawOttawa’s newly minted law eliminating the Canadian Wheat Board’s monopoly powers to market Prairie wheat and barley has survived its first legal challenge. Late Friday, a Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench judge denied a motion by eight former wheat board directors that would have temporarily prevented the Harper government from implementing the new law, which received royal assent on Thursday. “I am not satisfied that there is sufficient urgency to justify the consideration of an interim injunction at this stage,” Mr. Justice Shane Perlmutter ruled. He will hear more detailed arguments on an injunction against the controversial law in Winnipeg on Jan. 17-18. For now, though, the Harper government’s Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act (Bill C-18) remains in effect.

2011/12/15: CBC: Wheat board bill passes in SenateThe Senate has passed the Harper government’s legislation to strip the Canadian Wheat Board of its monopoly over Prairie wheat and barley sales. The bill received third reading and final approval in the upper chamber Thursday afternoon.

2011/12/15: CBC: Salmon virus in B.C. for decades, say biologists — World experts defend sample resultsDepartment of Fisheries (DFO) biologists have told a federal inquiry that fish samples, dating back more than two decades have tested positive for a virus potentially lethal to wild sockeye salmon — but that fact wasn’t publicly reported. Dr. Kristi Miller, the head of molecular genetics for DFO in Nanaimo, told the Cohen Commission on Thursday that frozen samples dating back to 1986 have been tested, and show infectious salmon anemia (ISA) has been in B.C. waters for at least 25 years. The public inquiry into the decline of the Fraser River sockeye salmon stocks was extended for three extra days after ISA was detected in wild B.C. salmon two months ago by Simon Fraser University Prof. Rick Routledge.

2011/12/16: G&M: Federal agency accused of intimidation over salmon diseaseScientists who uncovered the first signs that infectious salmon anemia is present on the West Coast have found themselves shunned and intimidated by federal government officials, the Cohen Commission has heard. Fred Kibenge, chair of the department of pathology and microbiology at the University of Prince Edward Island, said the credibility of his laboratory came under attack shortly after he reported getting two positive tests for the ISA virus in 48 sockeye salmon samples. Those samples were sent to him in October by a Simon Fraser University researcher, Rick Routledge, who was trying to figure out why so many salmon were dying on B.C.’s Central Coast.

2011/12/15: G&M: Virus present in B.C. salmon for decades, inquiry toldInfectious salmon anemia, a virus that has triggered devastating disease outbreaks in stocks of farmed Atlantic salmon around the world, appears to have been in British Columbia wild salmon for at least 25 years, the Cohen commission of inquiry has heard. The ISA virus — or a new variation of it — has been found repeatedly in samples of wild sockeye and pink salmon, as well as in samples of farmed chinook taken from one West Coast aquaculture operation. That revelatory evidence was given on Thursday, by Kristi Miller, head of molecular genetics at the federal Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo.

2011/12/16: CBC: Oilsands’ carbon emissions risingThe intensity of oilsands carbon emissions — the amount of greenhouse gases created per every barrel of oil produced — increased by two per cent between 2009 and 2010, according to an industry report. The 2010 Responsible Canadian Energy progress report by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) also found that overall greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the oilsands rose 14 per cent in the same time period as the number of oilsands operations expanded.

2011/12/12: CBC: Saugeen Shores shows interest in storing nuclear wasteA community on the shores of Lake Huron has cracked open the door to southern Ontario’s becoming the permanent storage site for Canada’s spent, but still dangerously radioactive, nuclear fuel. Until now, only nine communities in remote areas of northern Saskatchewan and northern Ontario were in the running to host the $24-billion project for a mammoth underground facility. Now, to the consternation of some, one of southern Ontario’s premier tourist destinations is on the radar, although how it got there is already the subject of dispute.

2011/12/13: OpenDem: Poland’s politics of abortionA citiziens’ initiative seeking a reform of Poland’s abortion law is facing a crucial test in parliament. This is the latest phase of a long struggle over women’s reproductive rights. It is also part of a changing Poland’s wider debate about what kind of country it should be, says Agnieszka Mrozik.

2011/12/15: EnvEcon: Breaking windThe developer of the largest wind farm ever proposed in North Carolina says the project has stalled because no utility wants to buy the power the project would produce.

2011/12/11: BBC: France nuclear giant to announce big loss – ministerFrance’s state-owned nuclear reactor maker Areva is set to announce large losses, the French industry minister says. In an interview with a radio station, Eric Besson said: “I can confirm that Areva will announce losses. In all likelihood they will be big.” Areva’s financial position was badly weakened in the aftermath of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster in March.

2011/12/16: BBC: LEDs offer a brighter future, says reportA field trial of LED light fittings in social housing says the new technology can deliver huge energy savings, reduce costs and makes residents feel safer. The study, carried out by the Energy Saving Trust (EST), measured the performance of more than 4,250 LED light fittings installed at 35 sites. The EST said it carried out the trial because an increasing number of LED lights were now commercially available. It is predicted the technology could dominate the lighting market by 2015.

My first novel Water was published in Canada May, 2007. The American release was in October. An Introductionto the novel is available, along with the Unpublished Forewordand the Launch Talk(which includes some quotations), An overview of my writing is available here.